Wannabe

Vote rigging of one sort or another has been in the news recently, so an article about the Spice Girls caught my eye yesterday. The girls are all geared up for a world tour, and have very generously left one date free for fans to vote on a venue near them. The winning arena, church hall or farmers field will host the girls on that spare date.

So guess where is winning so far......Baghdad!!

Now there are two schools of thought here about how the voting has been targeting such a place. The sympathetic theory is that the locals need a bit of cheering up and, together with the GIs in the city, they have voted for a bit of glamour. Now whether Scary Spice is really that in light of all else that is going on remains to be seen, but if the locals want them, thats fine.

The conspiracy theory on the other hand is that the rest of the world think Baghdad is the best place to send the thirtysomething has beens, and true music lovers would not take issue with that, would they?

My person experience of vote rigging was centred on the work local in Croydon, which some of my older IBM colleagues may be able to relate to. The local brewery wanted to rename the pub outside East Croydon station and asked for names to be put forward against which the locals could register a vote. One such IBM employee suggested 'The Sweaty Sock' and upon hearing this was a nomination there was a mass vote by the IBM staff. It won hands down, but the brewery refused to accept the name for the pub instead choosing 'The Porter and Sorter', the name under which it still trades.

The BBC Sports Personality of the Year vote has suffered from tactical voting in previous years, with fishermen, non-league football players and sumo wrestlers all featuring in the voting process, although none of them have ever made the final five. Last year was a particularly disappointing array of talent to choose from though.

This year could be a bumper year for nominations although people are indicating that the racing driver Lewis Hamilton, will drive away with it. There is, however, a world athletics championship and the small matter of the Rugby World Cup to potentially throw up a name or two, and lets not forget Ricky Hatton should he floor Flloyd Mayweather II in Las Vegas in December.

That fight provides more bad news for the Spice Girls who are scheduled in Las Vegas the same night. Word has it they have been dumped from the MGM Grand into a smaller venue to allow the boxing to take precedence. 'Say you'll be there' could well be their tour slogan.